🩸 Dark Shadows (2012) Review 🩸⚰️

“Only Depp Could Make Bloodsucking This Quirky”


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Let’s start by showing y’all the trailers shall we?

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Non-Spoiler Plot Overview

Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows adapts the cult 1960s gothic soap opera into a two-hour blend of camp, horror, and family dysfunction. The story follows Barnabas Collins (Johnny Depp), a wealthy heir in 1776 who is cursed by a vengeful witch, Angelique (Eva Green), into vampirism and buried alive. Flash forward to 1972, Barnabas is unearthed into a disco, lava lamp, bell-bottom world where his once-mighty Collins family now lives in a crumbling mansion.

Barnabas tries to restore both the family fortune and the family name… while wrestling with his thirst for blood, Angelique’s obsessive vendetta, and a family that’s dysfunctional in all the best Burton ways.


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Character Rundown

Barnabas Collins (Johnny Depp) – Pale, theatrical, and endlessly quotable. Depp plays him with a gothic edge, but also with absurd comedy—he’s a centuries-old vampire who doesn’t understand lava lamps or Alice Cooper. It works.

Victoria Winters (Bella Heathcote) – The governess who looks exactly like Barnabas’s lost love, Josette. Soft-spoken, tragic, and caught in the supernatural chaos.

Elizabeth Collins Stoddard (Michelle Pfeiffer) – The stern matriarch trying to keep the family together in the ruins of their empire. Pfeiffer brings real gravitas.

Carolyn Stoddard (Chloë Grace Moretz) – The rebellious teen daughter with a permanent scowl, a taste for music too loud, and a big supernatural secret. (Yes, this is where I first dipped out as a kid—I didn’t make it to her werewolf reveal until years later).

Roger Collins (Jonny Lee Miller) – Elizabeth’s good-for-nothing brother. Useless, sleazy, and doesn’t last long in the story.

Dr. Julia Hoffman (Helena Bonham Carter) – The alcoholic live-in psychiatrist. Funny in her cynicism, but also deeply unsettling in her obsession with Barnabas.

Angelique Bouchard (Eva Green) – The witch who cursed Barnabas. She steals the show in every scene, balancing camp and menace. Her porcelain-skin-cracking breakdown in the finale is both grotesque and haunting.



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Pacing / Episode Flow

The film has a deliberately slow, gothic build in the beginning—heavy on mood and melodrama. Once Barnabas wakes up in 1972, though, the tone shifts into campy fish-out-of-water comedy. The pacing wobbles (this could have been 20 minutes shorter), but the weird blend of gothic horror and 70s kitsch gives it personality. The third act veers into full-on haunted house spectacle.


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Pros

Johnny Depp fully commits. The guy is Barnabas Collins.

Chloë Grace Moretz delivers snark and attitude, standing out even in the Burton ensemble.

Gothic production design: the mansion, the costumes, the eerie seaside cliffs—classic Burton atmosphere.

The blend of supernatural horror with camp humor works more often than not.

Eva Green as Angelique is terrifyingly fun to watch.



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Cons

Tonal whiplash: is this a gothic horror? A family comedy? A melodrama? Burton wants it all.

The plot sometimes feels overstuffed—too many characters, too many subplots.

The comedy doesn’t always land, especially when it gets too slapstick.

The “love story” between Barnabas and Victoria isn’t given enough time to breathe.



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Final Thoughts

When I first saw this film as a kid, I ran out of the theater by the third act because the imagery was too much—Angelique’s cracked skin and the supernatural showdown freaked me out. For years, my parents had to tell me how it ended. Finally rewatching it as an adult, I can say: this movie is wild, messy, funny, and creepily atmospheric.

It’s not Tim Burton’s best, but it’s far from his worst. The gothic camp and Burton’s flair make it stand out. Depp and Moretz are highlights, and even though the story buckles under its own weight, there’s something charming about how over-the-top it all is.


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Rating

9/10 – A gothic romp that’s both creepy and absurd, carried by Depp’s vampiric theatrics and Burton’s knack for spooky visuals.


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Spoiler Warning

⚠️ Beyond this point, beware the cracked porcelain skin and werewolf reveals…


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Spoilers

The third act goes completely bonkers in a way only Burton would dare. Angelique storms Collinwood with supernatural force, her porcelain doll-like facade literally cracking as her obsession consumes her. Barnabas fights her in a chaotic showdown that involves fire, blood, and plenty of camp.

Meanwhile, Carolyn’s secret finally bursts out: she’s a werewolf. (As a kid, this is where I noped out of the theater—Chloë morphing into a wolf and Angelique’s skin breaking apart was nightmare fuel for me). Watching it now, it’s still absurd but in a fun, horror-camp way.

Dr. Julia Hoffman also reveals her sinister plan: she’s been secretly injecting herself with Barnabas’s blood to try to become immortal. When Barnabas discovers this betrayal, he drains her dry in a truly chilling moment.

The final sequence has ghosts—yes, literal ghosts—tearing Angelique apart and ripping out her still-beating heart, which Barnabas crushes in his hand. The Collins family survives the supernatural storm, and Barnabas finally gets a bittersweet sense of closure with Victoria/Josette.

It’s loud, chaotic, grotesque, and campy as hell—but that’s exactly what makes it stick.